Rimsky-Korsakov: Concertmaster solos from Scheherazade

"The young prince and princess" - capture the youthful, naive quality in the music

00h:01m:29s

Main motif needs femininity and sincerity

00h:02m:44s

Use the triplets to "spin" the tale

00h:05m:05s

If you slide to the top, make it subtle

00h:06m:29s

Don't overplay, either the dynamic or the character

00h:08m:27s

Reverse the bowing

00h:12m:25s

Andrés Cárdenes, former Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony, works with Derek Powell on the third movement solos from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

Composers:Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov

Works:SCHEHERAZADE, OP. 35

Instruments:Violin

Recorded Date:
06-10-2013

Andrés Cárdenes

Violin

Recognized worldwide as a musical phenomenon, Grammy-nominated Andrés Cárdenes parlays his myriad talents into one of classical music’s most versatile careers. An intensely passionate and personally charismatic artist, Cuban-born Cárdenes has garnered international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for his compelling performances as a violinist, conductor, violist, chamber musician, concertmaster, and recording artist.
Since capturing Second Prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, Mr. Cárdenes has appeared as a soloist on four continents with over 100 orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony, Sinfonica Nacional de Caracas, Sinfonica de Barcelona, and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. He has collaborated with many of today’s greatest conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir André Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Jaap van Zweden, David Zinman and Manfred Honeck.
This year and next Mr. Cárdenes continues his project to record many standard and contemporary concerti. Released in 2009 are recordings of concerti by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Barber and David Stock on the Artek and Albany labels. A recording of the complete works for violin by Leonardo Balada was released on Naxos in January 2011. The complete Sonatas by both Hindemith and Brahms, along with the Beethoven Violin Concerto are to be released on Artek in the fall of 2013. Plans to record Schubert's complete violin and piano music with David Deveau are slated for 2014, along with other sonata recordings with pianist Ian Hobson. Cárdenes’s discography includes over two dozen recordings of concerti, sonatas, short works, orchestral and chamber music on the Ocean, Naxos, Albany, Sony, Arabesque, RCA, ProArte, Telarc, Artek, Melodya and Enharmonic labels.
As an ambassador for music of our time, Mr. Cárdenes has commissioned and premiered over 65 works by American and Latin American composers such as David Stock, Mike Garson, Leonardo Balada, Ricardo Lorenz, Eduardo Alonso-Crespo, Roberto Sierra, and Marilyn Taft Thomas. His concerto repertoire includes over 100 works, ranging from the Baroque era to the present.
Mr. Cárdenes has thrice served as President of the Jury of the Stradivarius International Violin Competition and in 2011 joined the jury of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia.
A Cultural Ambassador for UNICEF from 1980-1991 and an indefatigable spokesperson for the arts, Mr. Cárdenes has received numerous awards for his teaching, performances, recordings and humanitarian efforts, most notably from the Mexican Red Cross and the cities of Los Angeles and Shanghai. He was named Pittsburgh Magazine’s 1997 Classical Artist of the Year and received the 2001 “Shalom” Award from Kollell’s International Jewish Center and the 2013 Chesed-Kindness Award from the Chabad Foundation for promoting world harmony and peace through music.
Mr. Cárdenes was appointed Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra by Maestro Lorin Maazel in 1989 and departed after the 2010 season to concentrate on his conducting, solo and chamber music careers.